


invisible string.

by okaypianist



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, No Pregnancy, Wedding Day, author is proud she wrote Mollard and not Mallard, conductor Rey, pianist ben, story told through a letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaypianist/pseuds/okaypianist
Summary: Cold was the steel of the lockbox where Rey stored cash in her work-study job at the ticket office.Gold was the band on Ben's signature watch, which he only took off to sleep, shower, or practice.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55
Collections: Reylo Folklore Flash Fic, Reylo Hidden Gems, the short and completed Reylo works of o. k. p.





	invisible string.

Green was the color of the mascot at Jakku U where Rey Johnson went to school.

Funny,because there wasn't much green to be found anywhere else on campus. It was a stark place, a cluster of steel buildings and a population of mostly commuting students. What was a Mean Green, anyway? How was it supposed to strike fear into the hearts of their rivals? It didn't matter much to Rey, because she was far too busy with classes and ensembles and work to attend sporting events and encounter this mysterious creature emblazoned on the free welcome week shirt that she only wore on laundry day.

Teal was the color of the rug in Ben Solo's apartment near Chandrila Conservatory of Music that same year.

His beloved baby-grand piano, which he had affectionately named Grimtaash (it's an old family joke), barely fit into the second bedroom. Ben was a good tenant and protected the floors properly, with the piano's wheels in caster cups and with the aforementioned rug, but he always grumbled to himself a bit each time he sat down for a practice session because it was such an awkward fit getting onto and off of his bench. At the time, Ben thought that was a pretty serious problem. Across town, Rey would have had at least a few things to say about that, but they hadn't met each other yet.

_ My dear, darling future husband-  _

_ Isn't it just so pretty to think, all along, _

_there was some invisible string tying you to me? _

Cold was the steel of the lockbox where Rey stored cash in her work-study job at the ticket office. 

Rey had a small needs-based scholarship, and more student loans than she felt confident taking out for a degree in the arts, hence the job. It was easy enough - smile, do a little mental math, take cash and cards, and verify student and faculty season passes. She got to do her theory homework in the slower stretches, to watch the dance and theater majors milling around in sparkles or period costumes or whatever was appropriate, and to wave to lots of her peers and professors as they came and went from shows, practice rooms or offices.

Gold was the band on Ben's signature watch, which he only took off to sleep, shower, or practice.

Actually- Ben practiced a lot. He was a piano major, and the expectation was to get in at least two hours a day of quality practice... but Ben had a bit of a problem determining quality, and sometimes he got stuck on quantity instead. Why two hours when he had three? Four? Six? Who needed sleep or friends or television when there was Important Musical Work to be done? His private lessons teacher, the legendary Dr. Snoke, was also unlikely to ever tell Ben to go take a break.

Rey carried her basic Mollard baton around in its plastic case because she was so afraid of breaking the little flimsy piece of wood that was her gateway to her future career. Ben broke an iPhone or two and it was a minor inconvenience. But... on the inside? Both struggled. Both worried. Ben knew he had been born into privileges greater than he could ever understand- his gender, his race, his parents' money and their social standing- but it didn't keep him from suffering.

_ I know you find some ideas of mine, _

_ like musings on the prettiness of thoughts,  _

_ to be a little hard to understand sometimes.  _

_ I bring you some silliness, and you keep me on planet Earth. _

_ Still, it feels so beautiful to me... to be here, on this fall morning,  _

_getting ready to marry you in just a few short hours. _

For graduate school, Ben stayed at Chandrila. Why leave? The music department might not all love him, but they gave him the big prizes and the best solos, and that felt enough like love for Ben.

Rey had a round of nerve-wracking and expensive interview weekends at different schools. Hoth and Endor seemed fine,but neither one felt like home. Rey chided herself- what could someone like her know about a homey feeling anyway? But then... the third campus. Chandrila. It was a long shot. A nine-percent acceptance rate for undergrad had put her off of even applying back then. Surely their grad school competition would be even fiercer? But Chandrila took on three conducting graduate students that year: Rose Tico, her husband Finn Tico, and Rey. She packed up, she moved across town, and she showed up eager to get started on her next degree.

Rey loved studying works by living composers. Ben had spent the last few years performing, as Rey put it to him later, "the music of rich dead white guys." When Rey showed her graduate mentor, Amilyn Holdo, some of the works she was hoping to program that school year, Amilyn directed her to Dr. Snoke's office to get his suggestions for soloists.

_ Were there clues I didn't see?_

_ Were we destined to be together, or is this an only-in-one-version-of-the-multiverse thing?  _

_ Were you made for me, or did we make ourselves for each other,  _

_ after time and love and hard but necessary work?  _

_Or is it both? _

Rey often wondered what it would have been like if she had met Ben when they were younger. When she voiced that to him while they ate pizza on his teal rug, he laughed self-deprecatingly and shook his head. "You would've hated me, and you might've been right. I had a lot of growing up to do." 

"We both did," she reassures him with a fond hand on his shoulder. They needed time, glorious time - and friendships, and therapy, and a few relationships each that weren't terrible but they just weren't... it.

Ben grew brave enough to leave Dr. Snoke's studio and thrived under the direction of Dr. Calrissian. Rey started a New Music Ensemble on campus and annoyed a few of the alumni who came to the first concert. They thought "new music" meant anything written after 1900, and they weren't ready for the music of Jennifer Higdon and Gabriela Lena Frank, for bicycle horns and electric violins and handclaps and audience participation and chance music. Ben wasn't sure he was ready for all of that, either, but he was there for Rey, with roses, in the best seat in the house (which is NOT in the front row, as any pianist knows).

_ I'm so grateful that some unseen force seems _

_ to have wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire.  _

_ The hard times matter, and I won't ever forget them, but I wouldn't change them.  _

_ Everything ended up woven together like the  _ _ beautiful scarf I'll learn to make for you someday.  _

_A single thread of gold stands out... a thread that ties me to you. _

Ben and Rey eventually got comfortable enough around each other to get some work done in a shared practice room. At first they were frantic for each other, both reaching out and seeking connection. Never quite sure they could be this lucky again, and that the other would call them back, or still be there in the morning. One more kiss. One more time. Just in case.

When their trust and confidence grew, as did their patience, they became musical partners, and joke partners, and cooking partners. Rey learned how to face her fear of abandonment. Ben learned how to face his fear of never living up to a family legacy. They started writing their own unconventional, musical life stories together, and it was beautiful to them. 

_Today, there are several golden threads woven through my bouquet._

_There is a gold band holding this complicated braided hairstyle your mother did for me in place._

_There is even that gold frosting on the delicious cake we both get to cut later_

_(but no real gold, of course, and I'm so glad I talked you out of that,_

_because I was right and that would be incredibly wasteful)._

Gold was the color of the prize that Rey's ensemble won at the Southwest Music Conference in the graduate student division. When she gave an interview for the College of Music's alumni letter, she credited three things: her unusual music selections, her hard-working musicians, and her featured soloist, Benjamin Solo.

_Hell was the journey (at times), but it brought me heaven._

_It brought us together._

_It brought me you._

_I love you._

_The Future Mrs. Rey Solo_


End file.
